Senator Jacinta Price on Territory projects, Peter Dutton blasts Labor

After visiting a Darwin construction site, the coalition heavyweights blasted the ‘interference’ that Territorian workers face in getting their projects over the line.

Senator Jacinta Price and Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. (Photo by Patrick HAMILTON / AFP)

Senator Jacinta Price says the government “can do things better” in delivering jobs across the Top End, maintaining Territorian workers and projects are being unnecessarily delayed and interfered with.

On Thursday, Senator Price visited the Darwin LNG plant alongside Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to meet construction workers on-site.

Senator Price said the purpose of the visit was to gauge the opinion of workers.

“It’s really important to see and understand what the challenges are here in the Top End, for construction, for our resource industry, so that we know how we can do things better to ensure we have plenty of jobs going on in the Northern Territory,” she said.

“And there are a lot of challenges that these industries face.”

NT Senator Jacinta Price says Territorian workers are being interfered with. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

After speaking employees, Ms Price said it was clear workers wanted their projects to “move smoothly”.

“They want to be able to conduct their jobs with not so much interference from unions, but (with) fairness and equality to be able to go forward and allow these projects to move smoothly for the benefit of the economy here in the Top End.”

Mr Dutton echoed his colleague and hailed Santos as an example of a company employing locally and “pumping money” back into Territory.

“We’re looking for opportunities of how we can help revitalise this economy because, as we heard yesterday, there is just so much concern in the local community here with what Labor has done on the law and order front which is impacting on the ability and desire for companies to invest into the local community,” he said.

“We want to see more investment, we want to see more jobs created as a result of that.”

Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says there is a “pessimism” in Darwin around the local economy. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Mr Dutton said the Labor party had failed the Territory, accusing the government of throwing a “wet blanket” across the jurisdiction.

“As we’ve moved around Darwin the last couple of days, there is a real pessimism about what Labor has done to this local economy,” he said.

“Labor really has thrown a wet blanket over the Northern Territory economy and businesses and families are really feeling that impact.”

On a related topic, Mr Dutton was asked whether the Coalition would commit to investing $1 billion towards a precinct at Middle Arm as they previously pledged.

Mr Dutton said announcements at a later date.

“We’ll make announcements in relation to specific projects closer to the election.”